Motor vehicles require mirrors in order to provide the driver or operator of the vehicle, with the widest possible field of view around his vehicle. This is done for safety purposes since most vehicles, due to their structural design, have "blind spots" which prevent the driver from seeing any object which may come near the vehicle. For years, automotive designers have attempted to eliminate these "blind spots" when designing their vehicles, however, this objective can never be reached because of the basic design of the motor vehicle. Thus, it has been found necessary to mount mirrors in and around the vehicle to enhance the field of view of the driver.
Moseby in U.S. Pat. No. 2,969,715 discloses mounting a very large rear view mirror to one side of the vehicle.
Because of an increased concern for safety considerations, more recent design rear view mirrors are being given streamline configurations. Quite frequently, these designs are rather long and elongated in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. The mirror may be mounted on one of the front fenders or on one of the front doors of the vehicle. While the streamline configuration of such mirrors has already significantly contributed to making collisions with these mirrors less dangerous, it is clear that safety problems still exist in this respect. This is so because these mirrors generally extend laterally of the vehicle body, that is laterally of the maximum width vehicle chassis.
In response to this, Talbet in U.S. Pat. No. 3,592,532 provides a rear view mirror which is retractable. Thus, the mirror normally extends laterally beyond the confines of the vehicle coach work but becomes retracted to within the confines of the vehicle coach work in response to an abutment against a person or an object.
Another attempt to solve this problem is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,156 to O'Connell, issued Aug. 21, 1979, wherein an outside mounted vehicle mirror assembly is disclosed. The mirror assembly includes a unitary mirror head supporting bracket which is rotatable between a storage position generally parallel to the vehicle side wall and another position generally normal to the vehicle side wall. Further, the mirror is supported upon a unitary bracket for movement between inboard and outboard rearward viewing positions. This mirror, however, is adapted to be pivotally mounted to an outside vehicle panel such as a door and thus its field of vision is limited.
None of the aforementioned prior art mirrors have been successfully employed in school busses to reduce "blind spots" of motor vehicles. Thus, the National Safety Council has reported 58,000 annual school bus accidents occurring nationally in 1977 and 1978 which resulted in approximately 165 fatalities per year. A Kansas Department of Transportation study of these national school bus fatalities pinpoints the contributing factors. From 1975 through 1978, 73 percent of the fatalities were among homeward bound pupils; 60 percent of the pupils were killed by the bus itself; and 47 percent were 5 and 6 years old. These statistics indicate that enhancing the driver's view in front of and around the motor vehicle could significantly reduce these fatalities.